When he slid behind the wheel of a ranch pickup, en route to meet Nate and the others, he saw Buck drive into the ranch yard with a horse trailer in tow. It stopped in front of the first-aid dispensary and veterinary-supply office. He would have probably paid no more attention if he hadn’t noticed Ty was a passenger in the pickup. He drove over to find out what was wrong. When he called out to them, Buck altered his course away from the dispensary door and ambled toward the idling truck with a sauntering gait.
With a glance at Ty, who remained by the parked truck, Chase asked, “Is something wrong? Is he hurt?”
“The kid? No.” Buck shook his head and pushed his hat back on his forehead. “We just came by to pick up some medicine. There’s a cancer-eyed cow on the north range that needs some doctoring. I thought I’d show the kid how it was done. That’s kind of rough, broken country, so I decided I’d let him get a feel of the lay of the land. He’s not familiar with the north section. It’d be terrible if the boss’s kid got lost.” Buck grinned.
“That’s true,” he agreed with a wry twist to his mouth. “Just make sure he doesn’t cross any boundary fences. Keep him on Calder land.” Especially today, he thought, but he kept that to himself.
“Will do.” Buck nodded.
Dismissing him with a one-fingered salute, Chase shifted the truck into forward gear and drove out of the ranch yard.
When the ramshackle buildings of the Shamrock came into view, Chase studied them. He’d heard the place was falling down, but he hadn’t expected it to look so ruined and deserted, a place for ghosts to live. Nate edged his horse closer to Chase’s mount, indicating with a nod of his head the car parked in the yard overgrown with weeds.
“O’Rourke’s got company.” He seemed to expect Chase to stop, half-checking his horse in anticipation.
“Looks that way.” He didn’t slow his horse, and the trio of Triple C riders followed him uncertainly, unaware that all was going according to his plan.
When they rode into the yard, Culley stepped out boldly to meet them. He was pathetically thin, his clothes hanging loosely on his skeletal frame. Green eyes gleamed out of dark sockets, alive with hatred and its accompanying madness. Chase eyed his opponent and knew that he couldn’t allow this twisted, malevolent man to be on the loose another day.
“You’re trespassing on private property, Calder!” Culley snarled. “I got witnesses.” He indicated the two men standing in the shadows with a sideways gesture of his head, his gaze never leaving Chase. “Turn around and get out.”
Chase looked at the two men. “Sheriff. Doc Barlow.” He acknowledged the presence of the two men by name, without letting it show that he expected to find them there. His stony gaze returned to Culley. Reaching down, he untied the coiled rope with its hangman’s noose and held it loosely in his hand for an instant. “I just came by to return something of yours.” He tossed the rope to Culley with a flick of his wrist. It landed in the dust at his feet. “You left it around the neck of a stallion. That was careless of you, Culley. You should take better care of your property.”
“What makes you think that rope is mine?” Culley scoffed. “I never left anything at your place. The only thing you got that belongs to me is my sister. And I don’t know nothing about any stallion.”
“Liar.”
The soft, one-word taunt made Culley bristle. For one second, Chase thought the scarecrow figure was going to spring at him and tear him apart with his bare hands. But his entire mood changed with a lightning flash. Culley silently laughed at him with a wide grin.
“No, Calder, you aren’t going to trick me like you did my pa. You can’t goad me into admitting anything,” he jeered softly. “That ain’t my rope … and you can’t prove otherwise.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Culley.” The saddle leather groaned as Chase shifted his weight, leaning forward to cross his arms on the saddle horn. “I not only can prove it, but I have. We matched that nylon rope we found around the neck of the stallion you hanged with the rope off a spool in town—rope from the same spool that Michels sold you a length from just a month ago. Isn’t that right, Nate?” He directed the question to the aging foreman positioned at his left rear side.
“That’s a fact.” Nate nodded as if he knew what Chase was talking about.
Culley’s gaze darted frantically from Chase to the cowboy. “That’s a lie!”
“Who’s lying?” Chase challenged him. “You shouldn’t have left the evidence behind. Didn’t you have the stomach to wait around while
the horse strangled to death so you could retrieve your rope?”
“I tell you it isn’t my rope!” he insisted wildly. “I took it out of the tack room! You don’t think I’m dumb enough to use my own rope to hang that stallion, do you?”
“I admit you showed a lot more brains when you wrapped the barbed wire around that calf’s neck. It looked like an accident to someone who wouldn’t know any better,” Chase said.
Culley let out a silent laugh of malicious delight. “I knew you’d get the message I left—nine little twists of the wire.”
Chase’s jaw was clenched in a rock-hard line. “A fella has to be sick to go around hanging animals.” The two men on the ground had silently moved closer to the thin, black-haired man while Chase was talking. “Wouldn’t you agree, Doc?” The sudden inclusion of the two spectators in the conversation took Culley by surprise. In his hatred for Chase, he’d overlooked them, forgetting that they, too, were listening to what was said. After the first sharp glance at the flanking pair, a mottled rage crept up Culley’s neck to turn his face red.
“You set me up, you bastard!” The snarling denunciation came the instant Culley realized a confession had been tricked out of him. “You always think you’re so damned smart.”
“No, you do. That was your mistake, Culley,” Chase replied.
“You’ll be sorry for this.” His hatred, so consistent and unwavering, began to shake him even as a smugness entered his expression. “What can they hold me on? Destruction of Calder property?” he taunted. “So maybe I’ll have to pay a fine and spend a couple of days in jail. So what?”
“So … while you’re in jail for those couple of days, the sheriff is going to arrange for a psychiatric examination. You’re too dangerous to be walking around free. I’m going to see that you’re put away, Culley,” Chase said, “before that warped mind of yours gets somebody hurt.”
“I ain’t crazy. They can’t keep me.”